Jon Jennings was in Bloomington, visiting with Indiana University athletic director Scott Dolson when he heard. Dolson looked at his phone and told him touted freshman Bronny James, son of NBA star LeBron James, had collapsed during a basketball workout at USC.
For Jennings, this hit home. Years ago, he was an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics under head coach Chris Ford. The Celtics had an emerging star in Reggie Lewis, a 6-foot-7 wing who could shoot from distance and defend with length. On July 27, 1993 — 30 years ago Thursday — Lewis collapsed and died of a heart condition.
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“Immediate,” Jennings said in a phone conversation Wednesday. “As soon as Scott said what he said, immediately those memories of Reggie started flooding back.”
Bronny James on Monday lost consciousness and was treated for cardiac arrest. According to a family spokesperson, James, 18, was in stable condition Tuesday following a short stay in the intensive care unit. Doctor Merije Chukumerije announced in a statement Thursday that James was discharged and sent home to rest; the cause of his cardiac arrest is not publicly known.
Tragedies unfold daily. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 356,000 Americans suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest every year. Most go unnoticed. But longtime basketball fans can probably tell you where they were when news leaked that Lewis, only 27, had collapsed while working out at Brandeis University, the Celtics’ practice facility. Or what they were doing when Loyola Marymount star Hank Gathers collapsed and died from a heart condition during a basketball game in 1990. Such memories do not fade.
Bronny seems to have been fortunate. He got the emergency care he needed. Seconds in these situations are precious. Bronny was the second high-profile athlete to suffer a heart-related issue in fewer than seven months. On Jan. 2, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin dropped to the field after he took a blow to the chest in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. His heart stopped and an entire sport gasped.
Hamlin’s inspiring recovery — he’s back at Bills training camp this week — brought international attention, but it also produced concern about elite athletes and health issues that go beyond torn knee ligaments and concussions. Bronny’s scare has revived the discussion. Experts say that it’s rare for athletes to suffer cardiac arrest, but they also point out that much is unknown.
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“It’s obviously always tragic to hear when this happens, but it’s particularly surprising, I think, too, and it seems particularly shocking because these are the people we think of as being the healthiest in our society,’’ said Dr. Euan Ashley, an associate dean and professor at Stanford Medicine. “… (But) I think every time it happens, it’s widely reported, so that gives the impression that it’s common. And the important thing is it is not common.”
Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart malfunctions and stops beating unexpectedly. A person loses consciousness and can die within minutes without emergency assistance. Dr. Dermot Phelan, director of sports cardiology at Atrium Health in Charlotte, N.C., said that, while uncommon, sudden cardiac arrest is the most common cause of natural death in young athletes, affecting anywhere from 1 in 15,000 or 1 in 50,000, depending on the medical study.
While Hamlin’s heart stopped after he took a blow to the chest — a rare condition called commotio cordis — those who suffer sudden cardiac arrest usually do so because of an underlying condition that can be difficult to detect. Symptoms can include light-headedness, chest discomfort and palpitations, but in some cases, the first symptom is the arrest itself.
“We kind of think about it in three buckets for young athletes,” said Phelan, who has consulted with the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball on heart issues. “One being problems with the structure of the heart that they were born with. Another being a problem with the electrical circuits in the heart that they were born with. And the last bucket being an acquired problem. Something that happened to them. They took a hit to the chest or had myocarditis, inflammation of the heart.”
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Phelan said about 75 percent of sudden cardiac arrests in the United States have occurred in three sports — basketball, football and soccer. Male athletes are at a significantly higher risk than female athletes. And Black athletes are at higher risks than White athletes. Citing a 2016 study, the Los Angeles Times reported that NCAA athletes had a 1-in-53,703 risk of sudden cardiac death. For Black athletes, that risk more than doubled to 1 in 21,491.
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“Exactly why that is, we don’t have a good understanding of yet,” Phelan said. “It’s a source of a lot of research that’s going on right now.”
Dr. Michael Ackerman, a genetic cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic, said the high-profile cardiac cases bring awareness that can help save lives. Sudden cardiac arrests happen in every community (and they have done so long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Ackerman added.) It makes people ask questions. Do we know enough about a person’s story? Are we asking about family history? Are we taking steps to see if a person has an underlying condition?
“And then recognizing that we’re not going to find everybody,” Ackerman said. “No matter what the screening tests (show), there will be some who have no warnings, whose screening tests would be clean as a whistle, and for those individuals, where their cardiac arrest is truly the first declaration of a problem, would it occur in a setting where it’s actually hard to die suddenly because we have a well-thought-out emergency-action plan?”
Throughout his recovery, Hamlin has praised the medical personnel that helped save his life. According to Chukumerije’s statement, Bronny James also received immediate care that may have played a similar role. Dr. Shaan Khurshid, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, called this the basics of a life-saving situation: recognizing a cardiac arrest, applying cardiopulmonary resuscitation and having an automated external defibrillator nearby.
“These were all things that appear, at least from the early (news) reports, that were applied expertly in Bronny James’ case, and I’m sure were a major contributor to the fact that he’s out of the ICU in about 24 hours,” Khurshid said. “(That) is really encouraging.”
The alternative is difficult to consider. Jennings, the former Celtics assistant coach, understands this. He thinks of Lewis all the time. In 1993, Lewis was just entering his prime. The Celtics had transitioned from the Larry Bird-Robert Parish-Kevin McHale years and were becoming Lewis’ team. He had averaged 20 points two years in a row and none other than Michael Jordan had praised his defense.
Lewis had collapsed in a playoff game, telling Jennings on the bench that everything had gone black. Doctors discovered “cardiac abnormalities” and warned Lewis against continuing his career. Lewis got a second opinion from a doctor who told him he could play under strict supervision. The day before Lewis died, Jennings said Lewis told him he planned to go to Los Angeles to see another specialist. He never got the chance.
“It’s just unbelievable to think that it’s been 30 years,” Jennings said.
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Remembering Reggie Lewis 30 years after his sudden and tragic death
(Photo: Alex Bierens de Haan / Getty Images)
